History, Development and Growth of Mike Cannon-Brookes as an Entrepreneur - Essay Example

A conceptual analysis of Michael Cannon: An Australian entrepreneur. Student’s Name: Course Code: Tutor’s Name: Date of Submission: History, development and growth of Mike Cannon-Brookes as an entrepreneur An entrepreneur is a person who organizes and manage other factors of production with the aim of making profit. He identifies a business idea; manage all the risks involved in the business operations in order to make profit (Stokes 2010). Michael Cannon Brooks is the co – founder a software company known as Atlassian. According to Brett (2012) Mike Cannon was born in1979, the son of a global banking executive mike is a successful entrepreneur. He schooled in Cranbrook school in Sydney and the University of New South Wales, where he graduated with bachelors degree in information systems. This education background has helped mike and his co – founder of the Atlassian Company Scott Farquhar much in the growth of their business. Mike Cannon and Scott started the company in 2002. The two were college mates and good friends. They started the business with a $ 10,000 credit card loan (Brett 2012). Due financial problems Mike and Scott were supported by Accel partners with $60 million as venture capital which contributed significantly to the growth of their company in July 2010 (Sami 2016). Their success in the entrepreneurship sector made them to be named Ernest and Young’s Entrepreneurs of the year in 2006. Through restructuring, Atlassian’s group holdings became Atlassian Corporation Plc with address in the UK but the official headquarters remained in Sydney. Brett (2012) says the company made its first initial public offer (IPO) in 2015 at $21for one share. In the process of making their business outstanding, Mike and Scott lists useful information of their company in the website. These include information about their products as well as their prices and support requests. For the growth of mike as an entrepreneur, he offers a variety of software such as project managers, tracking Jira suite at an affordable price to reach many buyers and maximize his profits (Sami 2016). Role of Michael cannons family and social cultural background in the development of entrepreneurial passion. Socio – cultural factors affecting entrepreneurial activities are all those man made intangible things that affect ones’ behaviour and the total way of life (Akpor 2012). They are the values which make the behaviour of people in a society (Boggs 2004). These values influence entrepreneurs and their intentions of starting and running a business. According Azim (2008) entrepreneurship originates from the socio - cultural business environment the factors play a major role in breeding entrepreneurs as well as shaping their mind. Education being one of the factors plays an important role or acts as a vehicle which takes people to entrepreneurship or employing themselves Abdullahi (2016). Like Mike Cannon, education leads to awareness and addition of knowledge, making an individual different from who he was before being educated. The knowledge acquired by Mike in the University of New South Wales gave him skills in information systems and this made him start his business in software. According to Morrisson (2000), the ability to manage a business and entrepreneurial communication skills increase as the level of education increases. The risk taking courage of Mike and Scott was in one way or the other acquired through education. Entrepreneurs who lack education face threats in the management aspect of their businesses, unlike Mike Cannon who have been able to manage their business and become billionaires. Family backgrounds cannot be left behind in building strong and successful entrepreneurs (Klyver 2007). Mike Cannon is a thirty seven aged entrepreneur who is married and have three children. His father was a global banking executive called mike. His mother Helen was very supportive to his son as he joined hand with a college mate, Scott Farquhar to start and run a company of their own. A family is an institution where individuals get their cultural core values from (Kalkan and Kaygusuz 2012). Entrepreneurial character traits can be encouraged and spread within a family. Interactions by the family members and exchange of ideas create an inductive urge for young family members to start businesses of their own businesses. Mike’s father being a global banking executive may have played a big role in making the entrepreneur. Due to his experience in the banking sector, he could a source of advice to Mike and Scott on how to take a loan and start the company. Mike’s wife, Annie is also an entrepreneur in the fashion and design sector. Boggs (2003) argues that family background can make other family members to have an interest and identification of one’s strengths as a result of deciding to be self employed. Individuals close to well up entrepreneurs get motivation from the entrepreneurs and develop the interest due to frequent interactions and exchange of views (Brett 2012). In this case, Mike cannon may take some values from his wife and develop the attitude of putting more effort and expand his businesses due to frequent interactions (Klyver 2007). Moral support provided to Mike by his, children and other family members have significantly increased his hard work and as a result improvement in his entrepreneurial activities. Good interaction with employees increases the success of a business enterprise (Dave, 2011). The diversified labour force for example a quarter being women and inclusion of whites and blacks in the Atlassian Company forms the basis of success. The Atlassian Company and its competitive advantage Atlassian is a company that sells software a venture that is developing as more technological advancements are being made. Owned by two former classmates and friends, Michael Cannon and Scott Farquhar, the company is able to supply its products in 130 countries around the world without a sales staff (Brett 2012). The major innovation that makes the company better than others is the use of the web to deliver and host software other than knocking on doors to sell. Their major products include project managers software and tracking Jira suite among others (Sami 2016). According to stokes (2010), a competitive advantage is a concept that explains the characteristics of a business organization that makes it perform better than other businesses in the same field. They may include access to raw materials or cheap supply of power, highly skilled personnel, location and others. This is something enjoyed by a business and other businesses do not have it making the business to stay ahead of the other businesses. Competitive advantage is created by a business strategy. A business strategy manipulates the available resources to make a business more viable (Morrison 2000). The Atlassian Company has used the three generic strategies to outdo other businesses in the software sector making Michael and Scott successful entrepreneurs. In their business of selling software which has come due to the improvement of technology, they have adopted cost leadership strategy which makes them sell their product at an affordable price to most middle class customers. This means if other businesses in the same sector are selling the same software at a higher price, people will go for the cheaper and their profits increase (Morrison 2000). Differential strategy is another strategy used by Michael and Scott. This is where they make their product unique from other producers and this increases the demand of their product, translating to an increase in sales and profitability (Azim 2008). A strong education foundation in the information technology sector makes Michael and Scott successful business people because their product is differentiated. Intensive research designing and development of their software keeps them ahead of other businesses in the same sector basing their company in Australia is another competitive advantage since there is no competition from talented engineers (Abdualahi 2016). Future suggestions for the Atlassian The owners can adopt other measures to increase their proceeds as well as venture in other businesses to make more profits. Since they started the business without enough capital and ten years down the line they have accumulated enough, there are areas they can venture in and also improve what they already have. Boggs (2004) says that entrepreneurs can position themselves other than prospecting. This can be done by positioning themselves as the leading authority in the software sector. Hiring more experts, specialists and advisors in the field of their investment can make them more and more successful. Innovation and creativity don’t cease. Michael and Scott can do more research in their field of specialization and improve their companies to the best (Morrison 2000). This can include designing more software and selling them at an affordable price to the lower class in the society. This can make their business, expand even to the developing countries where we have more lower class individuals. By creating raving fans and advocates of their companies all over the world (Dave 2014), Michael and Scott can take their companies beyond limits. As they strive to maintain their already established customers, they should try to have more and more through increasing of fans. The more the customers they get, the more successful they will be. References Abdullahi A I & Zainol F A 2016, ‘The Impact of Socio – Cultural Business Environment on Entrepreneurial Intention: A Conceptual Approach’, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, Vol. 6, No. 8, p. 81 – 94. Akpor – Robaro, M O 2012, ‘The Impact of Socio – Cultural Environment on Entrepreneurial Emergence: A Theoretical Analysis of Nigerian Society’, European Journal of Business and Management, vol. 4, No. 16, p. 172 -182. Azim, M T 2008, Socio – ‘Cultural Environment for Entrepreneurship Development in Bangladesh’, Journal of Bangladesh Studies, Vol 10, No. 1 P. 51 -60. Brett, K 2012, Business Owners’: Great Business Owners Share Their Stories, Kelly + partners Group, Sydney. Boggs, W B 2004, ‘TQM and Organizational culture’, The Quality Management Journal, Vol 11, No. 2, 42 – 52. Dave, L, John, K & Halee, F 2014, Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build A Thriving Organization, Harper Collins, New York. Klyver, K 2007, ‘Shifting Family Involvement During the Entrepreneurial Process’, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research, Vol 15, No. 5, P. 258 – 277. Morrison, A 2000, ‘Entrepreneurship: What Triggers It?’, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research, vol. 6, no. 2, p. 59 – 71. Sami, M 2016, Black Swan Start – Ups: Understanding the Rise of Technology Business in Unlike places, Springer, Berlin. Stokes, D, William, N & Mador, M 2010, Entrepreneurship, Cengage Learning, UK. Read More